History
Edinburgh City was founded in 1928. The club aimed to become the Edinburgh equivalent of the Glasgow club Queen's Park, and joined the Scottish Football League as an amateur club in 1931. The club won election to the league, where they replaced Clydebank, ahead of Nithsdale Wanderers by 25 votes to 7.
The result meant that the city would have to sustain five league clubs, as Edinburgh City joined Hearts, Hibs, Leith and St Bernard's. This appeared to be difficult, given that Edinburgh had less than half the population of Greater Glasgow, which had six league clubs (Celtic, Rangers, Partick Thistle, Clyde, Queen's Park and Third Lanark). The decision contradicted a league sub-committee, which had recommended that the league be reduced in numbers due to there being too many clubs in the Second Division which could not hope to compete with those in the First Division. As an amateur club, Edinburgh City merely added to that number.
The club were very unsuccessful in the league, as on average it won fewer than one game in six. This record that they finished bottom of the league table in six of the eight seasons between 1931 and 1939. It also conceded more than 110 goals in seven of those seasons.
They achieved a famous Scottish Cup upset victory, however, when they defeated Hibs 3–2 at Easter Road in the first round of the 1937–38 Scottish Cup. Hibs player Arthur Milne missed a penalty kick with five minutes left to play. In the next round, Edinburgh City lost 9–2 at Raith Rovers on 9 February 1938.
The club played in the Lothian Amateur League during the Second World War and was only admitted to the C Division in 1946. After three more years of struggle, the club left the Scottish Football League in 1949. It switched to junior status and played in the Edinburgh & District Junior League. The club ceased activity completely in 1955, when the local council refused to renew its lease on its home ground, City Park.
A club called Postal United was founded in 1966. The Edinburgh City Football Club Ltd (Social Club), which had continued trading throughout the abeyance of the football club, gave their approval in 1986 for Postal United to use the Edinburgh City name.
The club has regularly participated in the Scottish Cup since the mid-1990s, when it became a full member of the Scottish Football Association. In season 1997–98 they defeated SFL club East Stirlingshire, before losing 7–2 to Dunfermline Athletic, then of the Premier Division. Edinburgh City have since played Scottish Cup ties against Buckie Thistle, Cowdenbeath, Ayr United, Stirling Albion and East Stirlingshire.
The club applied to join the Scottish Football League in 2002, after Airdrieonians had gone bankrupt, but Gretna won the vote instead. Following Gretna's liquidation in 2008, Edinburgh City again applied, but this time lost out to Annan Athletic.
The club won the East of Scotland Football League title for the first time in season 2005–06. They have won the King Cup three times, the League Cup twice and the East of Scotland Qualifying Cup twice (including one King Cup and one Qualifying Cup won as Postal United).
Read more about this topic: Edinburgh City F.C.
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“A poet’s object is not to tell what actually happened but what could or would happen either probably or inevitably.... For this reason poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)